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Looking hard at the hunger around us

In March, Chewonki co-convened the second annual Local Food, Local Hunger forum on food security with the Morris Farm Trust, a community farm for education in Wiscasset. Creating a system that assures access to healthy food for everyone is a local and a global challenge. Here in Lincoln County, where Chewonki is located, almost 15 percent of residents live in poverty. That translates into hunger, even as the number of farms in Maine is growing, along with understanding of healthy food’s connection to healthy people and communities.Maine Coast Semester students participated along with concerned citizens and representatives from farms, food banks, social service organizations, environmental organizations, schools, and state agencies to look at food security through many lenses. Experts in the field highlighted obstacles, shared successful models, and raised questions to help shape a future in which stakeholders would work together to make sure no one in Lincoln County would go hungry.Megan Phillips, Chewonki’s farm manager, and Greta Huff, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer who works at the Morris Farm, organized a full day of workshops on topics including childhood hunger, state nutrition incentive programs, food councils, how to teach about food insecurity, gleaning, food waste, integrating local food into schools, food security for seniors, and innovative approaches to connecting farms with institutions.
Read more about the Local Food, Local Hunger forum in the Wiscasset Newspaper. See more photos from the event here.